


booze & bones

by Accidie



Series: the beginnings [2]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: A lot of animals - Freeform, Ableism, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Dutch and Hosea will make a cameo towards the very end, Gen, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Heavy Angst, Minor Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Period Typical Attitudes, Pre-Canon, Takes place before the first part in this series, Underage Drinking, Young Arthur Morgan, first chapter is fluffy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25096891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accidie/pseuds/Accidie
Summary: Beatrice Morgan dies. It's a downwards spiral from there.-In which Lyle is unable to cope with the loss of his wife and Arthur struggles to survive in a world that's hellbent on beating the kindness out of him.
Relationships: Arthur Morgan & Beatrice Morgan, Arthur Morgan & Lyle Morgan, Beatrice Morgan/Lyle Morgan
Series: the beginnings [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1817620
Comments: 16
Kudos: 69





	1. 1868 pt 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This fic will heavily feature child abuse in the future. But the first chapter is fluffy!

They go to Mrs. Gayle twice a week. 

Mrs. Gayle is a real proper woman, with a stern look on her weathered face. She always greets them on the porch with a list of jobs for them to do, and with a white cloth in her hand for his mother to wear on her head, just like the cloth covering her hair. 

“A bare head isn’t for married women,” she always says, and his mother never argues against it. 

Arthur is glad that he never has to wear anything on his head. Even in the winters when his mother tries to get him to wear a cap he refuses because they itch too much, and even when his father says he has donkey ears and a hat would make them look less big, he refuses. 

Mrs. Gayle is stern, but she’s fair and nice too. Always gives them plenty of food to take home the days when they work, and sometimes give them her and her grandchildren’s old clothes. 

His father hates her charity, so his mother can only accept it when he’s away. 

He’s been away long now, and even though she tries to hide it, Arthur can see his mother is worried. He doesn’t know what his father does when he’s away. But it must be something scary. Otherwise, he doesn’t think his mother would be so worried every time he leaves. 

The last time he came home, he had brought gold and jewelry with him that Arthur got to play with before his father hid it in one of the many stuffed birds in the attic. Sometimes, Beatrice would take it out, wrap the pretty silver chains around her neck and strut like a Princess from a fairy tale around the house, while Arthur sat down with the gold on his head, pretending it was a crown. 

They do it less often now when his father could be home at any minute, and his mother makes him promise not to tell Lyle about all the silly games they play when he’s away. 

There is not much room for play at Gayle’s farm. There is not much for Arthur to do at all. Sometimes he got to trail behind the men of the farm when they reaped the rye. Those times, he makes neat little piles of them so they are easy to collect once the reaping is done. 

Sometimes he would help the ladies of the house to wash clothes. 

Sometimes, but more often than not, there is nothing more to do than follow his mother around while she does all the hard work a five-year-old cannot do, and those times are his favorite ones because his mother always works close to the animals. They have chickens back at their home, but Mrs. Gayle has cows, and sheep, and pigs, and horses and ducks, and that’s a lot more exciting than the hens at home. 

Today it’s time for the sheep to get sheared, and he gets to spend the whole day with just his mother and Mrs. Gayle. 

He makes sure to pet them all one last time before all their fleece is gone, which is hard work in its own right, his hands being completely covered in grease just after a few minutes of petting them. 

When Beatrice and Mrs. Gayle are done with shearing them, they call him to work. 

He gets to clean the wool. He’s fast at it, and good, and gets all the small pieces of dirt that neither his mother nor Mrs. Gayle could remove while the two of them sort the locks. The finer, short fibers go into one pile and the longer in another. And when that’s finally done, Mrs. Gayle tells them they are done for the day. 

They get a quarter of the wool as a payment for their work. They also get a big pot of soup that they can take home, and Arthur promises that they will eat it quickly so that Mrs. Gayle can have her pot back in no time. 

He tries to wave goodbye to the sheep as he feels sorry for stealing from them when he sees them all naked, looking much smaller without the fleece covering them, but he carries a sack of the wool and while it isn’t heavy, it’s big so he needs both hands to be able to lift it. Beatrice has to wave for him, who manages much better even though she has a lot more to carry. 

His stomach hurts when they get back, and he’s tired, but the soup has to wait. Instead of eating dinner as he had hoped, they get water from the stream nearby to wash the wool in, to get rid of some of the grease. 

When they finally are done for the day, truly done, Arthur almost feels like he’s ready to drop at any minute, and his stomach growls in hunger, drinking down the soup quickly to his mother's annoyance. 

He keeps thinking of the sheep late into the evening. He knew where wool came from, he wasn’t stupid. It’s just that- well, he never had seen them so naked before. He thinks about it while they eat, while they bathe, while he makes an attempt to braid his mother’s hair after she brushed it, and while he finally gets to cuddle up next to her in their bed. 

His pa always said he was too big to sleep next to them, and he tried sleeping in his own bed so many times, but it was just too scary. 

He continues to think about the poor sheep. His pa once shaved his head when his hair got too long, and he still remembers how much he hated that. Especially since his pa never stopped talking about how big his ear looked without the hair. 

His head was also colder, and that is what worries him the most when it comes to the sheep. That they were gonna freeze, all because of him. 

Beatrice, always so vigilant, seems to notice that he’s got something on his mind. 

“What is it, son?” 

“Do you think the sheep get cold?” Arthur asks her. “Now when they are naked?” 

“No, Arthur, we shear them because they are too warm already.” 

“So, they won’t freeze at all?” 

Beatrice smiles at him. “No, although I am sure Mrs. Gayle would love to have you over again if you want to check up on the sheep. Then you can see if they look cold or not, would you like that?” 

Arthur nods, and Beatrice places a soft kiss on his forehead. 

“Ma?” he asks when it looks like she’s just about to fall asleep. “If they are cold, can you make a sweater for them?” 

“I’ll give them all the sweaters in the world,” she says, wrapping her arms around him tight. “I’ll show you how to make them if you like.” 

He presses his head against her chest, calming down just by her smell and the sound of her heart alone. 

“Socks too?” 

Beatrice just laughs. 

She wakes him up early in the morning with a cup of coffee and bread. Her braids looks neater today, so Arthur suspects that she remade them before he woke up, although she denies it when he asks. 

The day is just as laborious as the one before. He doesn’t mind, though, because seeing his mother so proud whenever he finishes a task makes it all worth it. His hands are too small to card the wool they were given, so while his mother prepares that, she sends him out on a dandelion hunt. 

The fields are full of them so he’s sure he will be able to fill the basket he’s been given. Perhaps if he’s quick, he’ll be able to be done before his mother was finished with the wool, he thinks that would make her very proud. 

His mother stops him just as he’s about to head out. 

“Do you got everything you need?” 

Arthur nods. She still inspects his basket and smiles at him when she sees he’s well prepared. Last time she sent him out on his own, he forgot his knife and had to go the whole way back just to get it, wasting a good hour on just walking. 

“Remember to stay on the path, and don’t go-” 

“Into the Woods, I know. And I’ll make a lot of noise so no animals come near me.” 

“And what do you do if you see a bear?” 

“Pa said there are no bears here, that you only say that so I won’t wander too much.” 

Beatrice scoffs. “Well your pa ain’t the brightest, and it’s always good to know what to do if a bear comes.” 

“...I’ll pet the bear.” 

_“Arthur!”_

“´I was joking, ma. I’ll lie on the ground and cover my neck and act like I’m dead and hope the bear only eats livin’ people.” 

“Very funny,” she snorts. 

Careful not to stray too far from the house, he gets to work. He’s careful but quick, makes sure to use the spade he’s been given instead of just trying to pull them up. She wants the full root, as coffee is too expensive nowadays. Mixing it up with dried and roasted root makes it last longer, she says, and it tastes almost the same. 

Tastes _gross_ in Arthur’s opinion, too bitter. Only good with lots of cream and sugar, as Mrs. Gayle made it. His mother says he needs to learn how to drink it, though, so when she offers a cup to him, he always accepts. 

The green leaves taste good used as filling in the pies his mother made. The flowers even better, breaded and fried, or made into syrup they could sell in town. 

He knows there aren’t any bears in the forest, but he still heeds his mother’s advice about being loud and therefore sings as loud as he can while working. He sings a song he heard the working men on Gayle’s farm sing once, drunk after harvest, and his mother had pulled him away and told Arthur not to listen to it, which only made him remember it more. 

“The captain's name was Lugger, by Christ he was a bugger, he wasn't fit to shovel SHIT from one ship to another,” he sings, putting a real emphasis on the curse word as this was his only chance to say it now when he was alone. It’s the only verse he knows for sure, so he repeats it until he gets bored. Then he just starts saying ‘shit’ over and over again to the tune of the song. 

He was so busy singing and picking flowers, he didn’t notice anyone sneaking up to him until the man was right behind him. 

“You know your ma don’t like you cursing,” a familiar voice says and Arthur drops both the basket and the spade in surprise. He’s being lifted, and suddenly the whole world turned. 

“Pa!” he squeals, reaching towards the man, something that was very hard to do when Lyle was holding him upside down. 

“Why are you wearing boots on your head?” his father asks, acting confused. 

“That’s my feet!” Arthur protests. 

“Oh, so I am upside down?” 

“Nooo,” Arthur laughs. “Put me down! It ain't funny!” 

Lyle doesn’t put him down, instead, he wraps his arm tight around Arthur’s waist and carries him all the way towards the house, Arthur’s legs still straight up in the air, and with the basket in his other hand. 

“Beatrice?” Lyle shouts when he arrives outside of the cabin, “I found someone we can put in the stew!” 

“You can’t eat kids,” Arthur says, “Put me down!” 

“Alright, alright,” Lyle says. “You’re getting real heavy, kid, barely can hold you for a minute more anyhow.” 

He first makes a move like he’s gonna put Arthur down on his head, which makes the boy giggle. 

“Stop it!” 

“You told me to put you down.” 

“On my feet, on my feet!” 

When Lyle finally turns him the right way up, Arthur almost gets dizzy from the blood rushing down from his head. Lyle gives him back the basket of dandelions, and just then Beatrice walks out of the door, not looking too pleased. 

“Go inside, Arthur,” she snaps at him. “I want a word with your pa.” 

Not wanting to get on her bad side, he quickly hurries into the house with a tight grip on the basket. As soon as the door closes behind him, he hears her start yelling. 

_“You said you’d only be gone for a month!”_

_“I got caught up in things, you know how it is,”_ is his pa’s meek reply. 

He starts to pick apart the dandelions. Roots in one pile, flowers in one, and the stems in another, all while trying to hear what they are saying to each other. 

_“Well, I hope you at least brought something worth it back this time,”_ he hears Beatrice say, _“Or at least found somewhere to pound off that gold.”_

_“Can we talk about this later?”_ is Lyle’s response. _“I’ve missed_ _ya_ _a whole lot.”_

_“...I’ve missed you too.”_

Then he hears kissing noises. That makes him stop wanting to listen. 

_Gross_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked the beginning of the fic! Please let me know in the comments. :)  
> I will update sporadically and hopefully have the next chapter out soon.


	2. 1868 pt 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The novelty of his father’s return home wears off quickly, at least for Arthur, and his pa seems to get tired of him just as quickly as well.

While his mother rides over to Mrs. Gayle to buy some prime steak to celebrate Lyle’s return with, Arthur stays at home. With her gone, Arthur gets some time to properly look at his pa. 

He’s much skinnier than he remembers. Or perhaps he always was that small, and Arthur only made him much bigger in his mind. He has deep circles underneath his eyes, reminding Arthur of the time his ma went out in the rain after coating her eyelashes in some black powder. _‘It looked pretty while it lasted,’_ his ma had said with a laugh, trying to wipe off the mess on her face. Arthur always thought she was much prettier without the paints she sometimes used on her face. He doesn’t say it to her because that would be mean when she enjoyed painting herself so much. She had let Arthur do it once too, but his pa had been so angry when he saw his powdered face and wax-coated lips that he forbade him from ever doing that again. It wasn’t proper, he had said. 

Perhaps his pa had used some of that powder too, and that’s why he looked so tired. It would explain why he was so pale too, even though he had been in the West were the sun always shone, according to his ma at least. 

“Do I got something on my face?” his pa asks, and Arthur looks away quickly, embarrassed that he had been caught staring. 

“No,” is Arthur’s reply. 

“Then why are you staring like that?” 

Arthur shrugs. 

An awkward silence sets over the table. It was always hard to find something to talk about without his ma there. 

“Do they have bad food in the west?” Arthur hears himself asking. The question just slips out of him, he had always been bad at controlling his tongue. 

“Why are you asking that?” 

“You’re skinnier than before,” Arthur says. “Perhaps the food wasn’t good.” 

“...There wasn’t a lot of food, back where I was.” 

“You can have my steak if you want,” he offers. “If you’re hungry, I mean.” 

“Don’t be stupid, kid,” his pa says with a laugh, but he’s smiling again at least. 

With a frown, he lets his gaze drop even further. He didn’t think he was being stupid. His pa seems to notice his discomfort. Arthur hears him sigh, and it sounds like he’s about to say something, but just at that moment, his ma returns home. 

While the two of them start talking, Arthur slips away. He goes out to play with the hens while she prepares the dinner, and doesn't go back inside until she calls for him. 

The novelty of his father’s return home wears off quickly, at least for Arthur, and his pa seems to get tired of him just as quickly as well. His ma still seems to be excited, sharing tales of all they have gotten up to while he was gone, his pa laughing hard at the time Arthur took a nap in the chicken coop and woke up covered in shit. 

He likes his pa, he really does, but it’s always easier when it’s just he and his mother. His ma is always nice, always says he’s good at what he does and all her jokes were nice, even when they were about him. 

His pa has opinions about everything and rarely seems to think Arthur does a good job at what he does. And when he jokes, it has often had something to do with Arthur being silly or looking odd.

Arthur doesn’t think he’s silly at all. If anyone is silly, it’s his pa. He even looks the part, with his whole face covered in hair, except for his chin. His mother says it’s a handsome look, but Arthur thinks that he either should shave the whole thing or not at all. 

It doesn’t make it better either that talking to his pa sometimes felt like talking to one of the cows back at Gayle’s farm. They always seemed very bored with him, too. They weren’t good listeners like his mom. But they didn’t seem to be annoyed by him, at least. Not like his pa did when he talked too much about things that his pa said didn’t matter. He never liked it when Arthur rambled on, so he makes sure to skip all the details when telling his pa about all the animals back at the farm. 

He tells him about the sheep, but doesn’t tell him all their names, or that he’s the only one of the workers that can see the difference between the pigs. He doesn’t tell him that his favorite duck only has one foot because the other was taken by gangrene. 

What he does tell him is that he knows what gangrene is now, and that it smells awful, and that Mrs. Gayle says he is one of the best boys at the farm, and that she says he’s quick and smart. 

“Ain’t much competition, I bet,” his pa jokes, earning a smack on the head from his mother. 

His pa laughs even more when Arthur tells him about the duck that bit him in the hand when he was gonna collect the eggs. A nasty duck that he’s named Andrew after the President. His ma didn’t seem to like him very much, and since his ma was a smart woman, Arthur was certain that the man must be a bad one. 

That started a whole other argument with his pa though, who said that boy ducks didn’t lay eggs and that he needs to find a better name. His ma had to come in and break the discussion of, saying that girl ducks can be named Andrew too and that it doesn’t matter what the duck is named. 

His pa doesn’t seem to be interested in all that, so Arthur loses interest quick in talking to him.   
At least the cows mooed back or licked his head when he got close. His pa just nods, and grunts in acknowledgment when Arthur asks if he’s still listening. 

His pa’s mood doesn’t get _really_ sour until late in the evening when it’s time to spin the yarn. 

Which doesn’t make much sense at all, because Lyle isn’t the one doing any of the work. 

His mother uses a spinning wheel, and Arthur has a little spindle of his own to practice on. He sits on a chair next to her and tries to draft the wool as evenly as possible so that the thread will be nice and thin, free from any lumps. It feels even more important today when his father finally is home because he wants to show how much he has improved. 

Lyle never compliments him on it. 

Instead, he can hear them argue about it late in the night. It’s in hushed whispers, but he hears it all. Night-time always spooked him. Especially now when he was supposed to sleep in his own bed for the first time in a very long while. He can’t help but to focus on every little sound he hears, and their voices are hard to block out. 

“ _Looks like you got the daughter you wanted,_ ” he hears his pa snidely say. 

“ _Oh, don’t you dare, Lyle.”_

_“Then why are you having him do all those womanly chores if that’s not the reason?”_

_“I will not have you lecture me about how I raise our son, not when you run off every other month back to those awful friends of yours.”_

Arthur puts his head underneath the pillow, trying to block out the noise. But they are too loud. 

_“I-I am not trying to lecture you, goddamnit, I just don’t want you to turn him even more into a softie than he already is.”_

_“He’s five years old. What am I supposed to do, give him a gun and tell him to go off_ _huntin'_ _on his own?”_

_“Don’t twist my words, woman.”_

_“You are the one coming back without any money, insulting your own son for how he earns his keep!”_

_“I won’t have you turning him into some invert just because you are too soft to teach him anything useful.”_

Invert. 

He doesn’t know what that means but by the way his pa spits it out like a curse, he knows it must mean something awful. 

They must have realized how loud they were being because he doesn’t hear how the rest of the conversation goes. 

Mrs. Gayle had called him a softie once. She had called him a sensitive little boy, too. It’s not until now he thinks that she perhaps wasn’t complimenting him. 

It takes an awfully long time for him to fall asleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this chapter! Please let me know if you did. Next chapter will move the plot forward somewhat.


	3. 1868 pt 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur goes out on his first hunt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: ableism, graphic descriptions of illness and mentions of the death of a young child.

His ma wakes him up early in the morning as usual. The cup of coffee is already prepared, but this morning it’s much sweeter. Probably some of the dandelion honey she had cooked late into the night. He thinks about asking were his pa is, but then he hears the sound of an ax from the outside. Already starting on the chores. It seemed like it would be a busy day for all of them. 

He liked busy days because his ma always was proudest of him after those. If there was anything he loved, it was making her happy. 

“Are we gonna go to the farm today?” he asks her. 

She smiles at him, Arthur frowning slightly when he sees the dark rings under her eyes. She looked very tired. He wonders if she spent the whole night arguing with his pa. 

“Your pa wanted to take you hunting today.” 

That didn’t seem like much fun. 

“Are you gonna come with us?” Arthur asks. 

“No, sweetie, I’m gonna continue spinning today.” 

He would prefer staying home doing that, but he didn't want to argue. Not when his ma looked so tired already. 

And perhaps his pa was right, perhaps there was something wrong with him. He didn't think that hunting would change anything, though. 

"Can you go to Mrs. Gayle later?" Arthur asks. "And ask about the sheep?" 

“Arthur, we’ve talked about this," his ma says with a sigh. "I can't go bothering her all day. You can ask them yourself later." 

“But it was very chilly last night, I heard the wind. It only sounds like that when it’s chilly.” 

"Arthur..." 

"Please, ma?" he pleads. "I can't go huntin' with pa if I worry about 'em." He thinks it's a good argument, the best he has. 

His mother seems to think so too. 

"Alright," she says with another sigh. "I'll talk to her, but only if you promise to be a good boy today, okay? I know your pa can be a bit thickheaded at times, but I don't want you to act silly in return." 

“I’ll be the best,” Arthur promises. “I’ll do anything he tells me to even if he’s stupid.” 

His ma smiles at him and ruffles his hair. “Good. Now, get going.” 

_ 

“Stop poking your nose, kid,” his pa snaps at him. It’s the first time he opens his mouth during their whole walk towards the lake. His pa said they were gonna hunt around there because he'd seen a lot of game around there before. “You’re too old for that.” 

“I wasn’t poking!” 

He was just scratching, honestly. And if it itches, it needs to be scratched. His ma had told him that once. 

“So you were trying to dig out your brains, that it?” 

Arthur stops, suddenly very scared. “I can poke my brain out?” he asks. That sounded awful. 

“For sure,” his pa says. “And if you scratch too hard, you’ll be a lunatic.” 

“A lunatic?” Oh, that sounded even scarier. 

“You’ll go mad, and we’ll have to send you to an asylum where they chain you to a bed and beat you until you get normal.” 

That didn’t sound right at all. 

“...I didn’t poke that hard,” Arthur says. 

“Well, you shouldn’t poke at all, now keep going.” 

Arthur makes sure to keep his hands in his pockets, scared that his hands will make their way up to his nose again on their own. They keep walking in silence for a while, but Arthur keeps thinking about this asylum place. 

“Do they really beat people, just because they are mad?” 

“You’re still thinking ‘bout that?” his pa asks with a scoff. “Just don’t poke your goddamn nose, and you won’t have to worry.” 

“It just sounds awful,” Arthur says. “Just to beat someone because they’re mad.” 

He had never met anyone that would do something like that. But he had only met the people at Gayle’s farm, and they were always good towards him, even if they teased him sometimes. 

“People are awful, kid, they’ll beat and kill each other over nothin’. Over the color of your skin, for where you were born or just for lookin’ at them wrong,” is his father's response. 

“Is that how it is in the West?” he asks. “Where you were?” 

“It’s like that everywhere, especially for silly boys like you,” Arthur scowls at that. He’s getting real tired of being called silly, especially if that meant that people wanted to beat him up. 

“That’s why you need to be strong, you hear me?” his father continues, “None of them womanly chores no more, or cryin’ over sheep. That’ll do you no good in the end.” 

His ma was strong, and she did all those chores by herself. He didn’t see how spinning yarn or helping around the farm would make him less strong. His arms always hurt at the end of the day, that must mean that it was hard work, and hard work made you strong. 

“Ma is strong, and she does all of them things.” 

“It’s different for men.” 

“Why?” 

“It just is,” his pa snaps. “Now stop talkin’ before you give me a headache.” 

It’s still a bit to walk towards the lake. It was a long time since he was this far into the forest, last time was when his pa was home during the summer the year before. He’d been trying to teach him how to swim. 

Sometimes he tried to practice the moves in the creek, but it was too shallow and his ma always laughed when he did, said he looked like a frog she did. Or a tadpole. 

He doesn’t believe his pa about people being bad everywhere. No one had been mean to him here. 

“I hope I never go West,” Arthur says. “If people are mean to others just for being silly.” 

“You’ve already been in the West, kid,” his pa says. “You were born there. Your ma and I married there. We’ll go back there again, as soon as I sell that gold in the attic.” 

Arthur frowns. “We’re gonna leave?” 

He didn’t want to do that. He would miss the farm too much. 

It seems like his pa knows what he’s thinking. “Yeah,” he says. “We’ll have a farm of our own, no need to slave for that hag ever again.” 

“Mrs. Gayle ain’t a hag.” 

His pa hushes him and stops in his tracks. Arthur stops too, and that’s when he sees the deer. 

A real pretty one, munching on flowers just between two trees ahead of them. It’s not big. Perhaps it’s a young deer? Arthur hopes it doesn’t have any mom or dad. He knows his ma would be sad if he got shot just to end up on someone’s plate. 

His pa readies his rifle, and Arthur shuts his eyes. 

He knows where meat comes from, but it still makes him sad when he opens his eyes again after the gunshot rings out, and he sees it on the ground bleeding from its head. 

It feels a bit better, though, when his pa clasps his shoulder, smiles at him and looks all proud. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” he asks. 

“No,” Arthur says, he tries not to look at the poor, poor deer. “Not at all.” 

\- 

His pa is in a better mood on the way back. Arthur gets to carry his rifle while his pa carries the deer. He doesn’t feel like talking at all. He thinks about the poor animal that his pa has slung over his shoulder. And the rifle is heavy, so even if he wanted to talk it would be hard. 

His ma is still at Mrs. Gayle’s farm when they return home to the cabin, so Arthur has to help his pa skin and empty the deer. At the end of it, he’s proud of himself for not getting sick and puking, even when he felt just like doing so. 

He avoids looking at the eyes of the animal, afraid that they would look at him in fear. 

His ma comes home in the afternoon and praises them both for the hunt. They don’t eat it that night though, his ma tells him that it needs to age for a bit first. He doesn’t know what that means but thinks that they should have chosen an older animal from the start. 

Instead, she makes some stew out of some dried meat and vegetables. He doesn’t feel much like eating. Not like talking either, not even when his ma tells him that Mrs. Gayle would help them pay for him to go to school when autumn came just because he has been such a good boy at the farm. Barely reacts when his pa laughs at that, making some joke about Arthur perhaps could grow somewhat of a mind there. 

He just thinks about that poor deer, continues to think about it even when he goes to bed. 

His ma and pa had told him the entire evening that he had been good today. He doesn’t feel good at all, though. He just feels sad. 

At night he dreams that he’s the one getting shot by an armed buck, and it scares him so much that he crawls down into bed between his parents, waking them both up in the process. 

Instead of getting called silly, as he thought at least his pa would call him, his pa just wraps his arms around him and tells him to shut up and go to sleep again. His ma also cuddles up to him, kisses the back of his head, and coos at him until he calms down. He lies so close between them that he can hear both of their heartbeats. 

It’s a nice sound, and he soon finds himself falling asleep again, this time free from any nightmares. 

\- 

Nothing good ever seems to last. He’s sitting at the dinner table trying to draw with the pencils he got from Mrs. Gayle as a gift when he sees his ma stumble and almost fall in the corner of his eye. At the last minute, she manages to grab a hold of a shelf to steady herself. 

“Beatrice?” his pa asks. She gets a strange look on her face. 

Lyle barely has the time to get the bucket before she pukes. At first, all that comes up is the stew from the night before. 

Soon she even starts to puke up the water his pa makes her drink. She goes from being able to sit up in her favorite chair to being forced to lie down in bed, with his pa guarding her, ready with a bucket in one hand and a glass of water to offer her in the other. 

Arthur knows his pa is scared, sees it on him. His ma just looks confused. 

When she’s still puking even after many hours, his father forbids him from going into her room. 

He can still hear her vomit, over and over again, and desperately wants to see her. 

They find out the in the evening why she’s so ill when Joshua, husband of Gayle’s young daughter Elise, comes bearing bad news. 

His toddler, and Mrs. Gayle’s grandson, is dead. The boy started puking just half a day after the family dinner and died a few hours after first showing symptoms, covered in bile and shit. Just recently turned one year old, and there is already a grave prepared for the boy. Elise is close to death too, already weakened after childbirth and even more by the plague that seems to take a hold of the whole farm. After the death of her child, she had started to refuse to drink altogether, she had already given up. 

Mrs. Gayle didn’t have a very long time left either, Arthur hears Joshua say that she’s barely responding anymore and that she has ‘spasm’. 

He doesn’t know what that word means, but it sounds scary. 

The rest of the family is ill as well, and some of the maids have just started to turn sick too. 

_Cholera_. 

From the shellfish they ate to lunch, that’s what Joshua thinks because he was the only one in the family who didn’t eat of it and the only one still healthy. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice thick from grief. “There is not much to do.” 

His pa sends the man away, rages at him while he does it. Arthur has never seen him that angry, screaming, and spitting like a madman. He tears his hair, throws stuff around him, almost crushes their rooster when he grabs a hold of a sack of chicken feed, and hurls it towards the coop. 

And then he just deflates, sinks to his knees and cries into the ground. 

Arthur wants to say something, or at least comfort his pa, perhaps pet his head like his ma always did to him, but he is too scared to move. 

It feels like the world is ending. 

\-- 

Lyle does everything in his power to try to save her, but everything she drinks comes up as quickly as it goes down. He ransacks their liquor shelf, shouts at Arthur when he gets too close to the bedroom door. Nothing he does seems to work, though. Nothing gets her to keep the liquids down.

Arthur goes to hide inside of the chicken coop. The hens don’t peck him nearly as much as the use too. The fattest and meanest one, Henrietta, even goes to sit in his lap and he gets to hug her. It’s as if they know he’s sad and scared. 

It’s in the middle of the night when he finally dares to go inside again. 

His pa is sleeping in the chair closest to their bedroom, his hand still wrapped around a bottle of beer. He’s been crying, Arthur notices. 

He sneaks into the bedroom, hoping that she’s still awake. His ma was a strong woman, the strongest he knew. She could lift him, he had even seen her lift a calf once, and they looked very heavy. Nothing could ever kill her. He might be stupid but he knows that she’s too strong to die from sickness. She has to be. 

The strong smell of vomit hits him as soon as he enters. It’s like walking into a pig's pen. Ten thousand times worse, because it’s his mom lying there, his mom who always made sure to bath at least once a week, and wash with a cloth and soapy water every day. 

It makes him sad, seeing her like that because he knows she must be very uncomfortable. 

It makes him even sadder when he sees how she looks, her skin with a blue and grey tint to it. Her skin looking like an apple that has been left out in the sun for too long. 

She doesn’t look like herself. 

“Arthur?” she croaks. 

“I’m here, ma,” his eyes are stinging. He didn’t want to cry in front of her, it would only make her sad. But he’s so _scared_ and he's unable to keep the tears from welling up in his eyes. His bottom lip shakes as he tries to keep the worst of the tears in. 

“Arthur, honey, you shouldn’t be here.” 

Every word is strained, like it takes a great effort for her to even speak. 

He doesn’t listen. Instead, he climbs into the bed with her, the front of her gown sticky from vomit. His pa said he could get sick too if he touched her. But she wouldn’t get him sick, Arthur knew that, because she had never ever hurt him before and she wouldn’t start now. 

“J-Joshua said that Elise is dead,” he says. “And that his little baby is dead too.” 

“Arthur,” his ma says. 

“Are you gonna die too?” he asks. “Please don’t die, ma.” 

“Arthur,” she tries again, but Arthur, as always, has trouble keeping his mouth shut. 

“I don’t want you to leave me, ma,” Arthur says, pressing his face into the crook of her neck. “I want you to stay here and teach me how to knit. You promised you would teach me.” 

“I know, son,” she says. She sounds so tired and Arthur had never heard that before, even those days when she used to work the whole day, she always had managed to sound chirpy. She had never sounded like this. “Arthur, please don’t cry.” 

“I am not crying,” he sobs. “It was just a cough.” 

She strokes his head, and he presses his head even further against her, even though she smells of vomit, of sweat, of everything else he doesn’t want to think of. 

“You said we were gonna make clothes for the sheep,” Arthur says. “You promised me we would do that. You can’t leave because you promised that.” 

“I’ll never leave you, Arthur,” she says. “I promise.” 

She’s dead in the morning. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry that I killed his mom.  
> Cholera really could kill within hours without treatment back then, especially if you were already weak. I feel sorry for poor Beatrice over giving her that kind of death. :( 
> 
> Also I know this strays from canon a bit regarding when she died, since Arthur's picture of her is from 1870 but shh I forgot that until half the fic was done so we'll ignore that a bit and pretend the picture is from 1867 sometimes. 
> 
> please let me know if you liked this chapter! I really appreciate all comments


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